Posted by Lynn on June 21, 2012

One of my favorite children’s books of the year (so far) is A Home for Bird by Philip C. Stead. This touching picture book has it all—adorable characters, wonderfully expressive illustrations and a subtle message about friendship and loyalty. Vernon, the determined little toad at the heart of the story, will melt your heart.

Stead, who collaborated with his wife, illustrator Erin Stead, on the 2011 Caldecott Medal winner, A Sick Day for Amos McGee, both wrote and illustrated A Home for Bird. And he also took the time to do a beautiful illustrated Q&A for the June issue of BookPage. Check out the bright colors and fine details of his illustrations here.

To find out more about this talented young author-illustrator, we asked Stead to answer a few questions from his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Please tell us a little about where you live and work in Ann Arbor. Do you and Erin share a workspace?Our home and studio today is a renovated 100-year-old barn. People often picture a barn out in the country, but actually we live just a few blocks from downtown Ann Arbor. From our barn we have views of the train station and the busy Broadway Bridge which travels over the Huron River. It’s a great spot to watch the world go by. We live on the second floor of the barn and commute to work by walking downstairs. We share the space, but have separate desks on either side of the room. Neither of us is particularly good at keeping a set schedule so sometimes we work at the same time, but often we don’t. Of course when you’re an author or an artist you’re kind of always working. It’s tough to get your characters out of your head once a project gets going.

You used a typewriter for your answers to the illustrated Q&A, which was surprising. What kind of typewriter do you have and why do you still use one? We actually have two typewriters. The one that still works is an Olympia Electronic Compact 2. It comes in a little plastic suitcase and weighs about a million pounds (not so compact after all!). We also have an antique mechanical Underwood typewriter. The Underwood originally belonged to my Great-Grandpa Vernon who, like the toad Vernon in A Home for Bird, was a “collector of interesting things.” I can’t say exactly why I love typewriters except of course that they’re fantastically fun. I love all the noise and movement. Writing really becomes a performance on a typewriter, nothing at all like typing on a laptop (which is what I’m doing now).

Can you tell us how you got the idea for A Home for Bird?It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment or event that sparked the idea for A Home for Bird. The story sort of began back in 2006 when I first started making drawings of a nameless toad who kept finding himself in unusual situations. The first sketchbook drawing was of a toad sitting on a telephone wire (an image that survived all the way to the finished book today). Eventually the drawings also began to include a wooden cuckoo bird. I made these drawings without any sort of story attached to them. It wasn’t until a few years later that a story and specific themes began to develop around those characters. Interestingly enough this actually leads to the next interview question!

I love the book's dedication, which reads: “To the homes I have loved (and those I have not).” Can you explain the story behind this? Have you had homes you didn’t like?In 2007 my wife, Erin, and I moved out of New York City and into a little house upstate about an hour and a half outside the city. We were hoping for an idyllic experience—peace, quiet, space to work, and most importantly cheap rent. New York City is expensive for artists just starting out (or anyone at all really). It didn’t take long to realize that the experience we’d hoped for was not the experience we were going to have. Everything that could have gone wrong in that home did from critters in the walls to crazy neighbors and everything in between. In desperation we moved out after just a couple months and moved into another home just a few hundred feet away. That home was better, but still bad. After a few months in Home 2, I began to toy with a storyline about two characters, a toad and a cuckoo bird, searching for a home together. It was about four more years before I finally finished A Home for Bird, during which time Erin and I lived in three more homes for a total of five, or more accurately six if you include our New York City apartment where I made those first drawings of a toad and a cuckoo bird back in 2006. I get exhausted just thinking about it! Happily, like Bird and Vernon, we eventually found a home that we loved.

What media did you use on the delightful illustrations in A Home for Bird?My previous books were illustrated using collage and pen and ink. I enjoy those techniques a lot, but they are very labor intensive. I really wanted Vernon’s world to seem breezy and light, and I didn’t feel like my collage art could create those effects very well. So I decided to switch it up. I began the illustrations in A Home for Bird by drawing with water-soluble crayons. Crayons have a way of making you draw with an enthusiasm that we all had naturally when we were kids. Of course you can’t erase crayons so you also have to be okay with starting over from time to time! After working with the crayons I then painted over top with gouache. The gouache paint is translucent in many places so the crayon drawing shows through on the finished piece.

How does doing a picture book by yourself (as writer and illustrator) differ from writing a book illustrated by someone else? Do you enjoy the creative control of being the one and only author and artist involved?I’ve discovered that for me both scenarios have up sides. When I am both author and illustrator I get to invent an entire world from scratch. Once the illustrations for a story really begin to develop it becomes a real treat to come to the studio and step into that alternate world for a few hours. Even when a project gets difficult if you love your characters and the world you’ve set them in then you’ll always enjoy going to work.

Sometimes, though, I’ll write a story that I simply can’t imagine myself illustrating. Most illustrators including myself have strengths and weaknesses. Even if I really like a story I’ve written I won’t illustrate it unless I think I’m the best man for the job. Luckily I also happen to be married to a fantastic illustrator. So far Erin has illustrated two stories for me, A Sick Day for Amos McGee and Bear Has a Story to Tell [to be published in September]. I can’t imagine either of these stories being illustrated by anyone other than Erin.

Posted by Eliza on June 29, 2011

After a weekend of meeting librarians and authors, reminiscing about favorite libraries and geeking out over new books, the BookPage crew returned from the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans on Monday night. I snagged way too many review copies for my carry-on suitcase (seriously: I had to check on the way home), but as we all know: Too many books is a good problem to have.

Here are my favorite moments from the conference:

BookPage had a booth, and countless librarians and library patrons dropped by to say hello and tell us why they look forward to receiving BookPage at the first of every month. My favorite was the librarian who told us, jokingly, that she wants to ban one patron from reading BookPage because of the sheer number of holds at he places after reading a new issue. (By the way, if you’re a librarian and you don’t receive BookPage, read about how you can sign up for a free two-month subscription.)

We had the pleasure of interviewing Tom Angleberger—author of The Strange Case of Origami Yoda and Darth Paper Strikes Back—at the Abrams booth. Not only was Tom a funny and enthusiastic author/illustrator, but he also created an Origami Yoda for us on camera . . . and staged an Origami Yoda vs. Darth Paper fight for us. Can’t beat that.

In honor of the publication of Super Diaper Baby 2: The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers, Scholastic held a huge party for Dav Pilkey. Red capes were provided and bartenders whipped up “tinkle-tinis.” Pilkey showed a video about his process, in which he explained that he incorporates misspellings and mistakes into his work because he wants kids to know it’s okay to not be "good" at the whole drawing and writing thing—as long as you’re doing it for fun.

Lauren Myracle, author of Shine, the TTYL books, the Luv Ya Bunches books and more, told us about how ashamed she was the first time she popped up on the most frequently-challenged books list—but now she sees it as a point of pride. (You go, girl!)

BookPage hosted a table at the Newbery-Caldecott-Wilder Banquet, and we gave away seats to librarians. The people at our table were a fascinating bunch—they had worked everywhere from a school library, a public library, a community college library to a prison library. We all had a lovely evening, and the one word that first comes to mind to describe speeches by Erin E. Stead, Claire Vanderpool and Tomie dePaola was “heartfelt.” I don’t think an eye was dry after Erin’s speech (A Sick Day for Amos McGee was her first children’s book), and Claire brought the house down with jokes like: “People asked me if winning the Newbery was like having a baby. I said: Winning the Newbery was like having a baby . . . if you didn’t know you were pregnant.”

We interviewed a grand total of 14 authors at ALA—including Jay Asher, Carolyn Mackler, Maureen Johnson, Francisco X. Stork, Maggie Stiefvater and more (stay tuned for videos). At the end of every interview, we asked each author to tell us a favorite library memory, and some of the answers almost made me tear up. Although we had a wonderful time rubbing shoulders with authors and indulging in a beignet or two, we never forgot what the conference was all about: libraries. I don’t think there was an author there who didn’t, in some way, credit his or her success to a librarian.

Posted by Eliza on January 18, 2011

After last week's Newbery and Caldecott announcements at ALA Midwinter, we have been dying to hear from the big winners.

Clare Vanderpool won the Newbery Medal for Moon Over Manifest, the Depression-era story of 12-year-old Abilene Tucker, and Erin E. Stead won the Caldecott Medal for A Sick Day for Amos McGee, described in BookPage as "a heart-warming story, comforting without a lot of fuss."

Today, both winners answered seven of our most pressing questions. Like: Are they nervous about writing an acceptance speech? What was the first thing to go through their heads when they found out they had won? Who provides inspiration? And perhaps my favorite question: Which book character would be the best desert island companion?

Posted by Eliza on January 11, 2011

Yesterday morning, the American Library Association announced the best books of the year for children and teens. I look forward to this annoucement all year because some of my favorite books of all time are Newbery winners (from Island of the Blue Dolphins to The View from Saturday), and as an elementary school kid I made an effort to read as many past winners as possible.

Like many bloggers (including Bird), I was rooting for Rita Williams-Garcia to take home the big prize (the Newbery) for One Crazy Summer. BookPage interviewed Williams-Garcia back in February 2010 and praised the author's "gift for combining everyday settings with social commentary and wry wit." One Crazy Summer ended up receiving a Newbery Honor (nothing to frown on), along with the Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award, not to mention the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.

The major surprises at the Youth Media Awards were that the Newbery and Caldecott went to a debut novelist and a debut picture book illustrator. Clare Vanderpool, the Newbery winner for Moon Over Manifest, a Depression-era story, lives in Kansas. Erin E. Stead, a 28-year-old illustrator in Ann Arbor, won the Caldecott for A Sick Day for Amos McGee, which was written by her husband Philip.

Even though I was surprised by this year's announcement, I'm still happy with how things turned out. I haven't read Moon Over Manifest, but now I can't wait to get my hands on it. It's always fun to be introduced to new talent.

Were you surprised by this year's big winners? Excited?

Below the jump, find the list of winners and honorees for the Newbery, Caldecott, Printz and Coretta Scott King Awards:

Newbery Medal "for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature":
Winner: Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
Honors: Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm; Heart of a Samuraiby Margi Preus; Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman; One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

Caldecott Medal "for the most distinguished American picture book for children":
Winner: A Sick Day for Amos McGee illustrated by Erin E. Stead
Honors: Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave illustrated by Bryan Collier; Interrupting Chicken, written and illustrated by David Ezra Stein